Once the astronauts settle in they will grow their own food. Food from Earth will only serve as emergency rations.The latest high efficient production methods that requires less space and resources will be employed to product vegetables, fruits and grains for Martian consumption. It wont be economical to take animals on to Mars. Also, their existence and survival on the new planet will cost more energy, which is not suitable for a limited energy environment. So either there will be very expensive meat products imported from Earth time to time, or you’ll have to accustom to a vegan life?

I suspect that if its colonised rather than a stay of a year or two its likely rat, rabbit and possibly even goat would be rapidly farmed. First the rat as its small and useful in a number of ways for instance unless you are going for a place in the Darwin awards it would be an idea to test the first plant foods on your "canary" rats just in case anything in the chemistry of Mars proto soil causes nasty effects. And if you are going to have rats the way GM and surrogacy is going you might be able to get some rabbits from stored embryos and they can eat plant stuff that is inedible to humans and turn it into protein. Goats would be the next stage preferable de-horned if your habitats are inflatable again they can also eat plant material inedible to humans and as well as the fat and protein from the animal itself(also fibres for clothing) can also produce milk which in a low gravity environment you could well need bio accessible calcium for your bones.

Personally I would quite like to see pigs as it wont be a civilised civilisation until bacon is available well from my point of view others may disagree. But from a general usefulness point of view I think the rat, rabbit and goat would have priority despite taste preferences. Mind you if the Mars colony gets big enough you might justify GM pigs for growing Human organs for transplants but ethics aside i am not sure how that would affect the taste of the bacon.

Oh and even with just a rat there are rodents called coypu which are big enough to make a descent meal with human knowledge of genetics and domesticated breeding I could see a Mars colony rapidly developing a range of stock purely from the rat lineage and a good laboratory.

_________________Someone has to tilt at windmills.So that we know what to do when the real giants come!!!!

By the time a "Mars colony" is practicable (no it won't be Mars One) you''ll be able to grow meat-like proteins either from cloned and cultivated animal cells or as a product of GMed organisms, bacteria or fungi. The only real animals will be those as pets for morale and phycological benefit.

Most martian soils sampled so far would be labeled as toxic waste if it were on Earth. They are full of various salts and other unpleasant things that got weathered out on Earth by eons of exposure to a dynamic, oxidizing environment. No one will be growing anything in Martian dirt until it is completely broken down into constituent elements and rendered palatable to Earth life. This is a long and expensive process. It would be much more efficient to use hydro and aeroponics, where you only have to worry about maintaining a good nutrient and Ph balance to the solution, which can be done with simple chemical means instead of maintaining a complex micro ecology (and worrying about it turning pathogenic).

On the OP's rhetorically answered question, yes, most likely space "self-sufficent" space inhabitants will be vegan. even the most easily maintained and cultivated animals, fish and shellfish, require more energy input and maintenance than plants, so they may not be practical, not to mention nonviable in microgravity environments with very tight mass and volume restrictions.

Whilst I would agree that initially they would start out with hydro and aeroponics and they would take along as much micro nutrients etc as possible to give them a jump start. A colony would have to eventually start living off the land. Complete breakdown of local materials would take a lot of energy, much as I am fond of wind and PV solar for our problems down here they are not going to quickly provide an energy rich environment on Mars. So unless we crack fusion in a portable form or its agreed that we can launch a chunky fissile nuclear reactor. I suspect the first attempts at colonising will use big inflatable green houses with locally sourced water Co2 and the least worse proto soil available. And as you have said what has been spotted so far tends to have an "interesting" and unusual chemical make up hence my suggestion of feeding rats the first produce whilst the humans live off the hydro and dry goods until the results are in.

_________________Someone has to tilt at windmills.So that we know what to do when the real giants come!!!!

No need to pack rats to Mars, we have spectrometers for that. There isn't anything different about Mars chemically, its just full of bad stuff that you have to filter out.

I am not expecting anything new to the periodic table, so in that way its the same chemically but isotope proportions are different that's one of the ways we can spot meteorites that have come from Mars. Also the more complex compounds created down here been influenced by our oxidising atmosphere that has been around for millions of years. Even if Mars was more Earth like long ago it is likely to be many million if not more than a billion years ago and that's a long time to influence the creation of complex compounds. Think of compounds like thalidomide and the different biological effects that the same chemical compound as seen in the spectroscope but varying effects depending upon its chirality. I would not be surprised if the differing environment of Mars will expand our knowledge of differing effects of bio accessible similar but subtly different compounds. And a couple of female rats and a freezer full eggs and sperm could I think in the early day replace several thousand tons of high tech laboratory equipment along with the need for the skilled personal needed to operate it.

_________________Someone has to tilt at windmills.So that we know what to do when the real giants come!!!!

Many of the nutrients that get into food production today comes from the rain of micrometeorite dust.

You have highly skilled people on site by default (astronauts) and the equipment will actually be along too for other purposes. Beyond being an added burden on the life support system, rats also have to be looked after and will invariably escape and mutate into ravenous monsters.

Many of the nutrients that get into food production today comes from the rain of micrometeorite dust.

You have highly skilled people on site by default (astronauts) and the equipment will actually be along too for other purposes. Beyond being an added burden on the life support system, rats also have to be looked after and will invariably escape and mutate into ravenous monsters.

I think it could depend when colonisation takes place I personally think we should try as soon as possible as humanity is in a single point of failure state just being on one planet. But if we do wait it might be the tech could shrink down to a size that would comparable to the advanced nano tech that is cheaply available in small rat sized packages.

Mind you the the mutate into ravenous monsters can happen down here I suspect this Rat wished it had tickets on Mars one where it would have been a useful asset and allowed to pass it genes onto a new colony of descendants.:-

But i agree with your point that electomechanical technological solutions are not the only or even preferable ones. Machines break, solar flares happen, so a "degraded mode" for living in space and on other worlds would be prudent. It increases the odds of a population being able to survive. But such biological and manual systems aren't simpler, in fact they are higher maintenance and more skill and art than precision science, which is why aerospace engineers are loath to even consider it except as last resort.

How small can we get cows? Under a meter, it appears, and cow milk tastes better (though given GM...).

Don't forget to take some chickens. Perhaps we can store them as embryos on the journey and hatch them on Mars. But for psychological purposes, keeping a couple during the journey might be a good idea, since it would give fresh eggs.

Maybe we can genetically engineer Tilapi strains which taste like beef and pork, as well... perhaps not steak, but bacon and mince from fish?

Bacon fish maybe pushing the limits of GM tech but I like your thinking. And you make a good point about the psychological aspects the human mind is capable of differentiating between bunny's for food and as pets its not good form to eat someone's pet . And I understand that quite a few people even have rats as pets.

But on a serious point I suspect that for long term survival a colony would eventually need insects and a range of other animals for a fully recycling biosphere 2.x even with Human guiding hand to fix the odd glitches.

_________________Someone has to tilt at windmills.So that we know what to do when the real giants come!!!!

After seeing a link on the beeb's site on the strange but true stories of April 1st I suspect when Elon brings the price down quite a few might want to emigrate to Mars to avoid the coming rat apocalypse as we get out evolved down here and may vigorously object to them being taken along despite their uses